


wing and a miss

by Clockenstein



Category: Granblue Fantasy (Video Game)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-02
Updated: 2018-08-02
Packaged: 2019-06-20 16:18:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15538137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Clockenstein/pseuds/Clockenstein
Summary: Invention is one percent inspiration, at least seventy percent perspiration, and the rest of it is mechanical trouble, explosions included.





	wing and a miss

**Author's Note:**

> part of the Crosswinds GBF tarot project ([@gbf_tarot](https://twitter.com/gbf_tarot) on Twitter). 
> 
> the three of pentacles represents the fulfillment of ventures, projects, businesses; it symbolizes the encouragement to continue onward, to persist, to learn, with the help of others -- to work towards things that one can be proud of. its reverse signifies disregard for the skills of others in groups (which can also imply competitive aspects), and a lack of harmony and unity towards a shared goal. 
> 
> mahira always struck me as an analytic, thoughtful character, if not a bit caught up in the cogs of her brain - why not introduce a scenario where, for once, she can't figure it out on her own?

(“Okay, so last Monday--”) 

(“Mmm, nope. It was definitely Tuesday.”)

 “Sunday was _definitely--_ ”)

 (“We were a day late to Amalthea, right? Turbulence.”)

 (“Sheesh, alright, alright. Okay, so on Tuesday--”) 

* * *

 On the Grandcypher, trash duty is fairly simple: you will find the trash bags in the hold; do not throw them over the side in flight; there is a disposal chute close to the arrivals office at the docks on most islands, and that is where they go.

This, of course, is the kind of thing that only works until Lamretta is on trash duty. ("It was the one chore I thought she couldn't mess up," Rackam had said, shrugging.)

(“And she had to do _something_ ,” he adds – but does that change the fact that Gran is out there footing the repair bill?)

So it's Mahira who comes up with the idea.

“The Junkity-Clucky,” she proposes. “So you push a button, and it'll start picking up trash and then look for a chute to carry it to – so, it's like trash duty.”

They're not sure if she's all that serious when she says it. (Maybe it's how she always sounds so absent-minded.) But she snatches the pencil and paper off the table and starts muttering numbers and things to herself – so they move on to the next actionable on the morning agenda and let her concentrate.

The idea comes to her as she draws and she draws as the idea comes, _the arm joints go here,_ and she starts to think this'll probably be a good project, no, it could be her best one. _Maybe have it run on treads instead of feet._

 And, she thinks, _Clucky turned out alright, didn't it?_ So this shouldn't be too much.

* * *

But they aren't good at this, the whole robot-building thing.

Well, actually, they _are_ . But not in a pair. And the thing is, Mahira's already crunched the numbers, and Nicholas's drawn up more plans – and did he come all this way here to visit and then _not_ build the robot? So they don't admit it to themselves, or to each other, and they go in over their heads.

Rackam finds them two hours and eight explosions later.

"Huh," and he stares at them, their faces blackened in soot. "Thought it was Marquiares."   

* * *

(“Maybe asking Hallessena for a bit of help might be a good idea?” Nicholas suggests.)

(“For a _trash robot?_ ” Rackam whistles. “Yeeeaahh, uh...”) 

* * *

In any case, Nicholas had been Rackam's suggestion.

On the second day, Mahira had asked Rackam about getting help from the engineers from Golonzo again, like with Clucky. She'd showed him the plans – he'd raised his eyebrows at them – but he'd also taken the smoke out of his mouth and sighed.

“No dice,” he says, finally. “Not that I don't want to. But Golonzo's pretty far off our current course, 's all,” and he hands the blueprints back to her.   

“Mmmm,” she says. “Where to?”

“A little string of islands just close to Valtz,” Rackam answers. “Come to think of it, that puts us close to the Rashomon Research Vessel too, actually. Heard over the grapevine they were...”

He trails off.

Mahira tilts her head at him, though she knows he's about to tell her what it is that's wrong – or, rather, not.

 “Actually,” Rackam says, “that's an idea.” 

* * *

Mahira starts writing a letter, and Nicholas shows up at her doorstep in about four hours.

The first problem – he sees Clucky, and immediately his eyes light up like he's ten, and she can't seem to get him to stop poking at Clucky like it's just some toy. But she just rolls with it.

“Wait, that's – did you use vimanacite for this?” he asks, the wonder evident in his eyes.

“Yup,” she nods. “The design's supposed to be... well, impractical, if you're using the ordinary stuff. But I needed the robot to be chicken-shaped, so they told me there was one way I could do it.”

“Needed?”

“I needed a chicken to be able to fly,” Mahira explains, matter-of-factly. “But a robot that does trash duty isn't as impossible as all that, I don't think.”

That snaps Nicholas back into the current century.

“Oh – oh! Right. The robot! Right! So,” and he unrolls the blueprints again, “I think we can get this to work. It's actually pretty cool, the way you drew this up – where'd you learn how to do all this?”

“Well, it's all theoretical, mostly,” she shrugs. “So I don't know if it'll actually—”

“You're kidding, right? I can't wait to see how this turns out!”

He laughs. And that is the end of the small talk – they get down to business. 

* * *

Mahira's still not sure how to get the robot to recognize trash and at the same time _not_ throw out Katalina's cooking in front of her.

(That was the tenth attempt -- they'd passed it off as a malfunction, Nicholas insisting wildly that beta prototypes tend to have a lot of problems, but she'd still sort of sulked out of the room, Vira following in a huff – and he's still a bit shaken by the North Vast chill he felt when she'd shot him _that_ look.)

And that was the _one_ time they'd gotten the robot to work, too – worse, Nicholas had insisted they disassemble it like the ones that didn't work, to Mahira's confusion. (She does ask – but all he says on it, his voice low, is: “Did you _see_ the look on her face?”) 

* * *

_Boom, crash,_ more _boom._ (Well, some of it actually goes _bang_ , but that's a minor detail.) 

* * *

(“What about Pengy?” Mahira says.)

(“Pengy?” Rackam scoffs. “Maybe if you want some Super Amazing Explosions.”) 

* * *

_Main routine._ _Initialize variables. Start search routine, perform internal movement check. Activate visuals. Enable condition for manual overrides._ (“That sounds good, I think,” Mahira says.)

 _Search routine. Jump to criteria routine._ (“Do you describe it here?” Nicholas asks -- “No, it's bad practice, I think,” she replies.) _If object fits criteria for trash, pick it up. Store into transport compartment_. _Loop condition._ _Check if compartment load is full. Check for pathway obstructions. Branch. Jump to disposal find routine if compartment full, else return to main search routine. Return to main routine if no trash in vicinity area._

 _Disposal routine._ _Begin pathfinding._ (“Is it okay that the pathfinder isn't in the mechanism?” Mahira asks.) _Check obstructions._ (“Yeah, as long as the module chip I added works right.”) _Match any objects that are chutes or bins. Dispose trash. Return to initial point. Return to main search routine._ _Criteria routine._ _Object is trash if bag is black and marked, or transparent and_ —

“Mmm, but if it's not in a bag...” Nicholas comments.

 _Object is trash if it matches the dictionary module_ —

“I mean, we could do that again, but Katalina—

 _Object is trash except if object is_ —

And Mahira loses her train of thought.

That hasn't happened before.

The thought stops her. Stops Nicholas, when he realizes that she is just kind of frozen there, a bit defeated.

She sighs.

“D'you need a little time to think?” he offers.

“Mmm.” 

* * *

They don't notice how cold it is until they warm by the kotatsu, and they breathe.

"Oh, man, this is _something_ ,” Nicholas says.

Well, he sighs, more like.

“...We got kind of caught up in it, didn't we?”

“I think I did,” Mahira says. “I thought, well, an algorithm wouldn't be so different from all the calculations I usually do. So maybe I got a little too worked up about it.”

“Probably. But I think, you know, I got a bit carried away after it didn't work the first time.”

“Mmm, but you got it to work.”

“Dunno,” Nicholas says. “It's just, I worked with a lot of complex stuff on – you know Robomi, right?” She nods. “So maybe when I started making all those changes I was probably overthinking it too much. Or, well, I can't think about it the way you do?”

That gets Mahira's attention. Her head perks.

“The way I do it? I don't really think it's—”

“Er, well – how do I say it? It's like – I looked at the blueprint, and you, uh, had a way of making it look _simple._ ”    

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you know – like, what was it called? Clucky?”

“Yup.”

“I probably couldn't have built that, you know? Like, if I'd run into that problem, I wouldn't have used the vimanacite, I think. Even if it'd have been the simplest way to solve it.”

“I don't know about simplest,” she says. “But it was just there, I think. I couldn't pass up the chance if I thought it could work. It was, well, right in front of—”

 _Right in front of me,_ they think at the same time.

A _bang_ goes off again. (In their heads this time.)

“Nicholas,” Mahira says. “What was that you said about Robomi?”

He stands up.

“I think I can get you a working logic module. I'll be back.” 

* * *

“So,” Mahira says, again, “the Trashy-Clucky. You press this button, and—“

 _Whirr._ The head pokes up, whirls itself around; the body rotates its treads towards the trash bag, scoops it by the neck, opens a chute, and shoves the bag into itself.

Rackam whistles.

“I kinda liked Junkity-Clucky more,” he says. “So how'd you get it to work?”

“Oh, well, that was Nicholas's idea,” Mahira says. “And Junkity-Clucky is fine, if you want.”

Nicholas grins and shrugs. “Not really, I mean – the whole thing was Mahira's idea, so—“

But Rackam claps him on the back and laughs. “Well, you got it to work, so I'm not going to sweat the small stuff,” he says. “Although, that reminds me – you think this thing's gonna solve our Lamretta problem?”

“Huh?” Nicholas says. “The what now?”

Silence.

Rackam rolls his eyes, looks at Mahira like, _You didn't tell him?_

(“Oh, that?” she says, a bit bemused. “I'm working on it.”)

**Author's Note:**

> My only regret is forgetting to include a joke about Marie and the Rashomon Vessel's research budget.
> 
> I had this impression that a lot of the stories would, by nature, be a bit more serious and introspective, which I took as a challenge to write something light-hearted and silly. Think it went pretty well. 
> 
> Crosswinds was a fun project -- I don't usually write GBF stuff. Like, at all. Have to admit I was hoping to be assigned Ayer because who doesn't want to write their star character, but Mahira is a character who plays to my writing style just a bit too well and I love her just the same. (Sure hoped you sparked her, because you better believe her 5☆ is gonna save Earth.)
> 
> If you're the kind of person to grab these, I shitpost about GBF on twitter at [@raid_echo_on](https://twitter.com/raid_echo_on). Cheers.


End file.
